The Birdcage
by Max Neverland
Summary: The world was falling apart. The red and gold beams of the final sunset bathed Aincrad in one last fiery glow before the floating castle shattered. The sun continued to shine; it grew brighter and brighter until there was nothing left in SAO but a blinding white light and the last two players seated at the edge of the heavens. Asuna pressed her forehead against Kirito's...


**THE BIRDCAGE**

The world was falling apart. The red and gold beams of the final sunset bathed Aincrad in one last fiery glow before the floating castle shattered. The sun continued to shine; it grew brighter and brighter until there was nothing left in SAO but a blinding white light and the last two players seated at the edge of the heavens.

Asuna pressed her forehead against Kirito's. His tears were warm on her cheeks and his body trembled in her arms. For all the strength Kirito had shown throughout the game, the fear of never being able to find her in the real world was breaking him. Asuna felt the tears well up behind her own closed eyes.

"I love… I love you," she whispered.

And then he was gone.

X

Something was wrong; Asuna knew it before she even opened her eyes. She knew that she should be waking up confined to a hospital bed, surrounded by the smells of disinfectant and the sounds of machine beeps, in an emaciated body that was barely keeping her alive. There should be the clack of nurse's heels in the hallway, or perhaps the soft sobs of the patient in the next room.

Instead, she felt warm. The air was filled with bird song and a soft rustling sound, likes leaves and wings. She was kneeling on something hard, but it didn't seem to pain her in any way as she would have expected. Slowly, fearfully, Asuna opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was the bars: tall golden bars surrounding her on all sides that rose high up into the air to eventually connect at the top, forming a giant birdcage. Beyond the gleaming bars ran the branches of a tree that was too large to be possible.

"This doesn't look like anywhere in SAO, but I don't think this is the real world either. So, where am I?" wondered Asuna aloud.

She surveyed the elegantly simple interior of the birdcage. All around the edge ran a flowerbed blooming with soft coloured petals, broken only by a gate with a keypad fixed to the side. At one end of the birdcage was a wide bed draped with white sheets; it had a high raised side with a stout mirror fixed along its length, and a thin veil was suspended from a gold frame above it. A long seat with a red cushioned top stood beside the bed. Beyond that was a pair of matching padded chairs tucked under a small round table. The last thing was a small shaped tree.

It took her but a moment to take all this in, and then she was flitting across the birdcage to the gate. She tried to lift it at first and when that failed, she punched random codes into the keypad; access was denied again and again. Frustrated, she turned back to the furnishings, trying to find anything she could use to break free, and finally caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the bed. A soft gasp parted her lips.

She wore a long white skirt knotted at her waist, and a flimsy strip of matching material was held in place across her chest with a red ribbon tied in a bow; the skirt parted just above her knees to expose her legs, and her stomach was bared. Two thick locks of her hair were pulled back into tight braids from her temples, adorned at the back of her head with a further matching strip of white material. Her feet were bare but for the white ribbons crossing just above her toes to loop around her ankles.

Poking out of her hair were two long pointed ears trimmed with metal leaf plates along the top. Asuna reached up and touched them; they were _real_ – just as real as the pair of long translucent wings sprouting from her back, which fluttered when she rolled her shoulders.

"I'm still in the NerveGear," she whispered.

Tears threatened to well up in her eyes, but she forced them back with a deep breath. Crying would do her no good. She was Lightning Flash Asuna, sub-leader of the Knights of the Blood and one of the most revered players in Aincrad. This was just another level to clear. _I'll check my inventory and skill set._ She lifted her hand in front of her and swiped down, expecting the menu screen to appear before her as it did in SAO; when nothing happened, she tried with her other hand and then with various combinations of swiping. Nothing.

"Menu," she said aloud. "Inventory. Settings. Log out. System admin help."

Her commands were met with a resounding silence. Not giving up hope, she strode over to the table. _Maybe it's a game master console?_ She ran her hands over every inch of it, but her search activated nothing. Her investigation of the rest of the birdcage remained fruitless as well. She stood in front of the golden gate and rattled the bars in frustration.

Her ears suddenly twitched as a new sound reached her: footsteps echoing through the treetops, coming closer and closer until a faint figure emerged from the canopy far along her branch. She strained her eyes to make out the silhouette.

"Who's there? Kirito-kun? I'm in here! _Kirito_!"

She stretched her arm out through the bars – and then snatched it back with a hasty step backwards. The avatar that came into view was a stranger. He was tall, with pointed ears to match her own. He was richly garbed in a dark green robe and cloak fixed at his breast with a large emerald. His long blonde hair was held back from his pale face by a heavy gold crown set with another large emerald. A pair of translucent green wings burst from his shoulder blades.

The avatar stopped on the other side of the bars. He wet his lips, his cold eyes hungry as they roamed over her body. Asuna fought back the shiver that tried to climb up her spine and she kept light on her toes, ready to spring. She did not recognise him, but the animal way in which he looked at her was eerily familiar.

"Who are you?" she asked, keeping her voice cool and unwavering.

"Why, Titania, what an odd question," the avatar replied silkily. "After all, every queen should know her king."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Asuna. "Let me go."

He gave a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He tapped on the matching keypad on his side of the bars and the gate slid up. When he stepped through, Asuna launched herself at him, her wings propelling her forward and her body poised for battle – and then she found herself slammed against the bars. The avatar pinned her there, his grip like iron and his breath hot on her face; his own face was ugly and twisted, his eyes bulging in their sockets. With horror, Asuna realised she was as helpless in this new virtual world as she had been that very first day in Aincrad's Town of Beginnings. She could do nothing but feign the strength she wished she felt inside even as the gate slid shut again, trapping her inside once more.

The avatar took hold of a lock of her hair and dragged it under his nose, breathing in deeply. Asuna fought back a shudder. _It's not real, it's not real…_

"Perfection," the avatar drawled. "You're just as beautiful here as you are in the real world."

" _Sugou Nobuyuki_ ," Asuna breathed. "You're a GM, aren't you?"

"You were always so clever."

The avatar – Sugou – leered at her. He inhaled her scent again, then ran his thumb down her cheek, pressing it hard into her flesh. His eyes roamed down her body once more, lingering on her chest, and then he released her. She allowed herself a single shaky breath to regain her composure when he turned and moved away from her, his arms out stretched as if he were on display.

"Here in Alfheim, I am the Fairy King Oberon, and you are my bride, the lovely Queen Titania," he declared.

"Never," hissed Asuna.

Sugou clicked his tongue at her as if she were a naughty child. He pulled a chair out from the table and lounged in it, leaning back with his legs splayed and his hands linked behind his head. Asuna walked over to the long seat beside the bed and sat down there, keeping Sugou in sight the whole time. She rested her palms carefully on her knees and fixed the fairy king with a cool gaze.

"Sword Art Online was cleared," she told him. "I saw it happen. All the surviving players should have woken up. _I_ should have woken up."

"Yes, it was cleared," confirmed Sugou, "and the majority of players that were left alive have woken up, including the game's big hero. Kirito, wasn't it? The Black Swordsman."

From the ugly look on his face as he spat out Kirito's name, Asuna suspected that he must have had some idea of what she and Kirito had been to each other in SAO. Asuna kept her own face impassive, but inside her heart thudded against her breast, simultaneously overjoyed and breaking. _Kirito was free_. He had made it out. Had he found her in the real world yet? Did he have any idea that her mind had been stolen by another virtual world? And then another sickening thought, the one that had frightened her so much in SAO: how much longer did her body have before it wasted away and she died? _I need to get out of here._

"Why am I here?" she asked Sugou.

"To be my queen," he replied.

"You know I will never agree to that."

"You will," said Sugou, his eyes glittering manically again. "After all, I could _make_ you, but I'd rather you wanted me the way I've always wanted you."

"That will never happen."

"This cage is impenetrable," said Sugou, rising to his feet and gesturing at the bars, "and no one knows you're here; no one in Alfhiem and no one in the real world. I've blocked your menu access. You have no inventory. No skills. No players can reach you here in the World Tree. Not even the other system admins know that you're here. It's just you and me and this cosy little cage. It could be fun, if you'd let it."

He came towards her with an almost predatory walk, moving closer with every word he spoke until he was looming over her rigid avatar. He placed his fingers on her jaw and forced her head up, but when he brought his face down as if to kiss her she couldn't stop herself from flinching. He sneered at her reaction and put his lips to her ear instead.

"I'm a patient man. I can wait," he whispered. "You'll be begging me for it soon enough."

"Let me go," commanded Asuna.

With a final brush of his thumb across her lips, Sugou withdrew. He straightened up, adjusted his cloak and swept his hair out of his face. Asuna noticed that his expression was no longer crazed; he held himself with noble composure, as if he had donned the mask of the fairy king. This sudden shift in his countenance frightened Asuna even more so.

"I will take my leave, Titania, until the morrow," said Sugou regally.

With an elegant bow, he turned and left the birdcage. The golden gate slid shut behind him. Asuna waited until his avatar had disappeared from sight before she threw herself down on the bed and wept, her face buried in the sheets the way she had once snuggled into Kirito's chest during those glorious days in their little log house on Aincrad's twenty-second floor.

She allowed herself to cry until all the tears were gone, and then she sat up again, drying her cheeks on her palms. _This is too cruel_ , she thought. They had fought so hard for so long only to be snatched away from each other on the very cusp of their freedom. Asuna knew that even though Kirito had returned home, he would never truly be living in the real world until he found her. He was still as much a prisoner to the NerveGear as she was.

Asuna clenched her fists around the bedsheets, her knuckles straining white. She raised her face to the Alfheim sky, letting her eyes blur out the bars so she could look beyond the sprawling World Tree to the endless horizon; it was a brighter blue than she had ever seen in Aincrad. She would have thought it beautiful at another time.

"I won't let him best me," she vowed aloud. "I'll keep on fighting. I won't give up, but you can't give up either, Kirito-kun. Look for me. Find me. I'm here."


End file.
